It’s Day 8 and Oldest Child got stung by a stingray today on the sole of his foot. Very, very painful. Now this guy is a big, tough rugby player and has always had a high tolerance for pain, but was clearly in extreme discomfort. We had to call the paramedics who cleaned out the wound and administered three (yes, THREE) shots of local anaesthetic to give him some relief. At this point his friend, who was standing nearby trying to help, started to feel faint and had to sit down. I would observe, from so many years of close study, that men are not always good with needles.
Given the extreme pain he felt upon any sort of movement, we then had to figure out how to get him up the beach, over the sand dunes and into the house. All 215 pounds of solid rugby player. In the end, we had hubby and the three biggest boys carry him, with Mum bringing along a chair to put under him each time they needed to rest, and the 12-year-old carrying a cooler full of hot water for the sore foot. We are usually a bit of a travelling circus wherever we go, but this was quite a display even by our standards.
Apparently the injury will hurt for about 24 hours. Interestingly, and non-intuitively, the best remedy for the pain is to keep the foot submerged in hot water, as hot as he can bear. He’s now resting comfortably, with foot in said water, stuffed full of both ibuprofen and local anaesthetic. He figures a shot of tequila would top things off nicely, so I guess he is on the mend.